Be Careful of Sneaky Bank Charges

If we’re not careful about banking fees, we’ll be losing a lot more than we gain from the bank.

I learnt this first-hand when I didn’t monitor a savings account I had opened during my university days. I always thought just keeping it aside would be safe, but boy, was I wrong.

By the time I realised it, the bank had deducted hundreds of dollars from my account to pay for the “account servicing fee” (in other words, just keeping my money for me), as my deposit amount had dropped to below the required minimum balance.

This was completely new to me as I’ve never experienced this with my POSB account before.

I didn’t manage to pull up all the records, but here’s one of them. The bank paid me a pathetic 2 cents in interest, while they happily deducted $10 from me. That’s almost like the equivalent of the …